Brazil in 2011

Area:

8,514,877 sq km (3,287,612 sq mi)

Population

(2011 est.): 192,813,000

Capital:

Brasília

Head of state and government:

President Dilma Rousseff

On Jan. 1, 2011, Dilma Rousseff, a former political prisoner who had been persecuted by the military regime (1964–88), was sworn in as the first woman president of Brazil. She outlined a domestic agenda that focused on the maintenance of economic stability, poverty eradication, political and tax reform, improvement in the quality of government spending, job creation, and an increase in prosperity and wages. She articulated a foreign policy that stressed human rights, multilateralism, peace, and nonintervention. On August 2 President Rousseff launched a new industrial policy, “Larger Brazil,” that included “buy Brazilian” provisions and tax cuts for industry. On its way through Congress but not yet passed by the year’s end was the new forestry code that sought to address deforestation. A landmark law that established a truth commission to investigate the disappearances and human rights abuses during military rule was signed by Rousseff on November 18.

Throughout 2011 the Rousseff administration faced accusations of corruption. The first and most important of these surfaced in mid-May when the media reported that Chief of Staff Antonio Palocci’s consulting company had profited substantially from government decisions that favoured its clients. Palocci resigned on June 7, and Rousseff immediately replaced him with female Sen. Gleisi Hoffmann of Paraná state and the Workers’ Party (PT). Evidence of overinvoicing for railroad and highway contracts resulted in wholesale changes at the Transport Ministry in late June and July, most notably the resignation of Transport Minister Alfredo Nascimento on June 24.

By the end of 2011, investigations into multiple allegations of corruption and the potential of congressional inquiries had led to the resignation of five cabinet ministers, all holdovers from the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”), of which Rousseff had been the chief of staff. In addition, the minister of defense stepped down because of misgivings with the government’s direction. The constant stream of allegations and evidence sparked protests on September 7 (Brazilian Independence Day) and October 12 (the feast day of Brazil’s patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida) in dozens of cities—including Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo—by tens of thousands of Brazilians, led by the Movement Against Corruption.

The exit of members of Rousseff’s cabinet under clouds of corruption was accompanied by a series of judicial decisions that highlighted the dysfunction of the judiciary and the impunity of those accused of certain crimes. On March 23 the Supreme Court voted 6 to 5 to nullify the application of the 2010 Clean Slate Law to the results of the October 2010 elections, having ruled that the law needed to have been in effect for at least a year prior to the election. By a vote of 3–2, on June 7 the 5th Chamber of the Superior Federal Appeals Court overturned the 10-year jail sentence for bribery imposed on investment banker Daniel Dantas by Judge Fausto de Sanctis. Moreover, in September the use of illegal wiretaps and search and seizures were cited by the 6th Chamber of the Superior Federal Appeals Court as it annulled federal police investigations of the son of the Senate president and former president of the republic, José Sarney. This decision extended to other prominent federal police investigations into white-collar crime (Operation Satiagraha) and bribery (Operation Sand Castle).

In advance of the mayoral elections in 2012, a major political realignment began with the announcement of the founding of the Party of Social Democracy (PSD) in Salvador (Bahia) and São Paulo on March 20 and 21, respectively. Led by São Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab, the PSD attracted a migration of more than 600 mayors, 50 federal deputies, and prominent politicians such as Raimundo Colombo, the governor of Santa Catarina, and Henrique Meireles, former president of the central bank. The PSD’s official registration on September 27 enabled the new party to field candidates in the upcoming mayoral elections and to seek policy influence as a potential coalition partner. On October 29 Lula was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx and immediately began treatment. The extent of his influence on the Rousseff administration, the PT, and the mayoral elections would depend on the nature of his recovery.

Concerns about security and violence were addressed in Rio de Janeiro, the future site of the 2014 association football (soccer) World Cup final and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. In June and November, respectively, state police, supported by the armed forces, pacified Mangueira and Roçinha, two major favelas (slums) that had been controlled by drug traffickers. Prior to the Roçinha operation, police arrested prominent drug kingpin Antonio Bonfim Lopes. Despite these actions, Rio de Janeiro continued to be plagued by high-profile violence. On April 6 in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of Realengo, a 23-year-old gunman entered a school and killed 12 people, injured dozens of others, and was wounded by police before he turned a gun on himself. On August 12 Patricia Acioli, a federal judge who was instrumental in handing down stiff sentences to drug traffickers and corrupt police, was found murdered in her car in Niteroí in Rio de Janeiro state. On September 27 State Police Lieut. Col. Claudio Luiz de Oliveira, implicated in organizing the Acioli execution, turned himself in to authorities. Prior to her murder Acioli was apparently about to issue an arrest warrant for Oliveira. Torrential rains in early January flooded towns in Rio de Janeiro state and created mud slides that killed more than 750 people, left more than 10,000 people homeless, and caused billions of dollars in damage.

The Brazilian economy cooled down in 2011. It grew 3.7% in the 12 months that ended in October 2011 after having soared 7.6% over the 12-month period that ended in October 2010. Measured by the expanded consumer price index (IPCA), inflation over the 12-month period that ended in November 2011 reached 6.64% to exceed the federal government’s inflation target of 6.5%. Because the high price of commodities such as sugar and ethanol contributed to inflationary pressures, on April 28 ethanol was subjected to price controls by the National Petroleum Agency. President Rousseff subsequently ordered the required levels of ethanol in Brazilian gasoline to be reduced from 25% to 20%. Later the government reduced federal taxes on imported and domestic petroleum products by more than 15% to stabilize prices, and state-owned Petrobrás reduced the price of gas by 18.6%, effective in November. On August 20, after five successive rate increases from January through July, the central bank’s Open Market Committee decreased the overnight discount rate (SELIC rate) at which banks could borrow from the central bank from 12.5% to 12%. By the end of the year, the SELIC rate was down to 11%, with the likelihood of further reductions to come. Brazil’s GDP in 2010 was $2.2 trillion.